“…Contributing to a stressful court experience for survivors, many partners continue a pattern of abuse by enacting coercive control through post-separation legal processes (i.e., “legal abuse”; Gutowski & Goodman, 2023a). Legal abuse includes threatening and attempting to reduce the other parent's custody and visitation time (e.g., Campbell, 2017; Watson & Ancis, 2013), threatening children's safety (e.g., Zeoli et al, 2013), using in-person proceedings to cause distress (e.g., Elizabeth, 2017; Miller & Smolter, 2011), defaming the other parent's character and ability to parent (e.g., Watson & Ancis, 2013), and harming the other parent financially, such as through threats or attempts to take or withhold finances (Gutowski & Goodman, 2023a). In addition to this misuse of court processes, partners can coerce and manipulate court-ordered mediation processes (Douglas, 2018) and shared parenting arrangements (Zeoli et al, 2013).…”